June 2026 The Shift e-newsletter
FREE Webinar: LCA Data to Impact | Textiles & Circularity | Collaborative Cotton Position Paper
From Data to Impact – How to Get Cotton LCAs Right
DATE: Thursday, June 25th, 2026
TIME: 1PM - 2PM EST
PRESENTERS:
Eleanor Turner, Climate Reporting & Project Development Manager at Better Cotton Initiative
Mariana Ortega Ramirez, Senior Sustainability Analyst at EarthShift Global
About the Webinar:
Life Cycle Assessment is a powerful tool for identifying environmental hotspots in cotton production and guiding long-term sustainability improvements. But when LCAs are used in isolation—to justify sourcing shifts, make comparative claims, or minimize farmer engagement—they often produce the opposite of intended impact.
This brown bag webinar dives into how LCA data should and shouldn't be used, drawing on a collaborative position paper developed by Better Cotton, Cotton Australia, Cotton Incorporated, and the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol. We'll explore why attributional LCAs can mislead when applied to sourcing decisions, and introduce practical frameworks for responsible data use—whether you're reporting Scope 3 emissions, making marketing claims, or planning supply chain investments.
About the Speakers:
Eleanor Turner, Climate Reporting & Project Development Manager
Eleanor is a sustainability professional with over 7 years' experience working across the environment and carbon landscape. Her expertise spans carbon accounting, life cycle assessments, environmental impact methodology, voluntary carbon markets and end-to-end carbon project development. Eleanor currently works on carbon and sustainability programmes at BCI where she focuses on farmer level GHG quantifications, carbon project design and market-facing climate solutions.
Mariana Ortega Ramirez, Senior Sustainability Analyst
Mariana leads lifecycle assessments for agriculture, textiles, and energy sectors. She recently contributed to From Data to Impact: How to Get Cotton LCAs Right—a position paper challenging how the fashion industry uses LCAs, emphasizing that data alone doesn't drive impact. Mariana holds a Master's in Industrial Ecology and specialized LCA training from the Institute of Environmental Sciences in Leiden.
From Data to Impact: Why How You Use LCA Data Matters More Than the Numbers Themselves
Written by Mariana Ortega Ramirez, Senior Sustainability Advisor and Tess Konnovitch, Scientific Marketing Manager
Life Cycle Assessment is one of the most rigorous tools we have for understanding the environmental footprint of products, from cotton to semiconductors to biofuels. It tells us where impacts come from, what trade-offs exist, and where interventions matter most. But here's what we've learned over 25+ years in sustainability: the LCA itself is only half the story. The real question is how you use that data. And right now, across the cotton industry and beyond, LCAs are sometimes being misapplied in ways that undermine the very sustainability outcomes they're meant to support.
Textile Exchange's New Cotton LCA Model Comparison: EarthShift Global's Role and Key Takeaways
Written by Juanita Barrera, Senior Sustainability Analyst and Tess Konnovitch, Scientific Marketing Manager
Imagine handing the exact same dataset to six different teams of LCA experts and asking them all to calculate the environmental impacts of cotton cultivation. You might expect the results to be fairly consistent. After all, the inputs are identical.
What you might not expect is that the results for some impact categories could vary by more than 200%.
That is precisely what a recent study published by Textile Exchange found — and EarthShift Global was one of the participating organizations. The report, Life Cycle Assessment for Cotton: Model Comparison (March 2026), is one of the most transparent and methodologically honest exercises we have seen in the LCA space, and we are glad to have been part of it.
Quantifying Circularity: What Real-World Textile Trials Reveal About LCA and Recycled Materials
Written by Mariana Ortega Ramirez, Senior Sustainability Analyst and Tess Konnovitch, Scientific Marketing Manager
When Accelerating Circularity set out to scale circular textile systems, they faced a fundamental question: how do you prove that recycled textiles actually perform better environmentally than virgin materials? The answer required rigorous life cycle assessment (LCA) work embedded in real-world production trials—not theoretical models, but actual yarns, fabrics, and finished products made from mechanically and chemically recycled fibers. In our July 2025 Brown Bag Webinar, Sarah Coulter, US Program Director at Accelerating Circularity, walked through how her team partnered with EarthShift Global to quantify the environmental impact of their textile-to-textile recycling initiatives, and what those numbers reveal about the future of circular fashion.
Upcoming Training
EarthShift Global offers a range of expert-led trainings designed to strengthen practical LCA skills — from foundational concepts to advanced interpretation and communication techniques.
Data Visualization in Life Cycle Assessment
June 16th | 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM ET
This course explores how to effectively visualize Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) results to improve clarity, credibility, and decision-making.
Life Cycle Costing (LCC)
June 17th & 24th | 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET
This course introduces the principles, methodology, and practical application of LCC to support better planning, budgeting, and decision-making.
Impact Assessment Methods
June 23rd | 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM ET
This interactive online training course provides an overview of commonly used and accepted impact assessment methods, including background on how these methods model the fate, transport, and exposure pathways (causality chain) of emissions, allowing you to understand each impact category and why your results change when you use different impact assessment methods.
View our full training calendar to explore upcoming courses and register.
Interested in Partnering with EarthShift Global?
If you would like to explore your project ideas, learn more about our services, or seek other assistance, book a complimentary consultation with our lead business development associate Brad Rose.